Eco fashion is no longer dull with the backing of heavyweight designers

Eco fashion had a reputation for being worthy albeit a bit dull. But with the backing of heavyweight designers, including the former head of Hugo Boss Bruno Pieters, all that has changed.

Sustainable fashion has grown up (Picture: Phillip Waterman)

Livia Firth, glamorous eco-conscious wife of actor Colin Firth , may have hit the headlines this week with her Green Cut initiative – nine famous designers including Tom Ford creating sustainable outfits inspired by film – but the permanent green heart of London Fashion Week was already beating strongly in its swish headquarters at Somerset House.

Estethica is an exhibition of designers who have decided to work in a sustainable way, whether by trading fairly, using organic fibres or recycling. If you think that means rails of crafty patchwork tops, think again. Sustainable fashion has grown up and Estethica, set up in 2006 with designer Orsola de Castro at its helm, is partly responsible for this.

‘Estethica was the real birth of the eco fashion movement,’ says de Castro, a tiny Italian powerhouse. ‘Our brief was to dismantle the stigma, to render eco fashion very much the future but to focus on it being design-led.’

That last aim was key in resurrecting sustainable fashion. It was in the early 1990s that it gained a reputation for being worthy but plain. ‘These were brands that were no longer motivated by design,’ says de Castro. ‘They were more like missionaries.’

Participants in the first Esthetica in 2006 demonstrated that working sustainably did not have to mean losing the edge. From Ali Hewson’s upmarket eco label Edun and East End upcyclers Junky Styling to de Castro’s label From Somewhere, cuts were clever, shapes were flattering and colours were sharp.

‘I’ll never forget the first Esthetica,’ says de Castro. ‘There was all this love and enthusiasm. Everyone had given their best. People were coming from the rest of London Fashion Week and saying there was a tangibly different atmosphere here, a real sense of communication.’

The sense of communality hasn’t changed. Among the 15 showing at Esthetica earlier this week were the gothic sensibilities of Ada Zanditon, Joanna Cave’s ethereal jewellery, Henrietta Ludgate and the exuberant Central Saint Martins BA graduate Liora Lasselle. This month, Lasselle was announced winner of the Estethica/Veolia Re-Source competition with Central Saint Martins. ‘I’d researched a lot about what fashion does to the environment,’ she says. ‘Ultimately, I didn’t want to be part of that.’

Award-winning Belgian designer Bruno Pieters, formerly head of Hugo Boss, launched website Honest By this year featuring phenomenally beautiful clothing, which is all traceable at every stage of production.

Former head of Hugo Boss Bruno Pieters launched website Honest By this year (Picture: File)

‘Bruno is a fantastic crossover from mainstream to eco,’ says de Castro. ‘He is a mainstream designer who said: “I can’t work like this any more.” Honest By is a completely unique concept and exactly where we need to go.’

Pieters’ inspiration and commercial nouse are particularly significant because the recession has hit sustainable fashion – hard. ‘There’s been a decimation of brands over the past two years,’ says de Castro, grimly. ‘Some of the best ones haven’t made it.’

How does she respond to accusations that eco fashion still labours under those old misconceptions: that it’s homely but expensive? ‘Quite violently,’ she says. ‘Sustainable fashion is too diverse to be engulfed in one word. For me, it’s about individual designers.’

She admits shoppers need to be more open-minded to the charms of sustainable fashion: ‘We’ve spoiled ourselves with choice. We’ve created a fashion industry that works in such a way we can produce six collections a year.’

‘We don’t believe sustainable fashion is too expensive,’ adds her business partner, Filippo Ricci. ‘We believe the alternative is too cheap. But the real price is not on the tag. It’s the social price, the environmental price.’

Where is sustainable fashion now? ‘It’s become more sophisticated, more glamorous,’ says de Castro. ‘Now, we are beginning to develop designers with a strong aesthetic, which is nonetheless dictated by sustainable choices.’

Today’s designers, she says, have learnt from the past: from the design inspiration of early eco-fashion warriors such as Jessica Ogden; from the mistakes of so-called ‘missionary fashion’; and from the genius innovation of current designers such as Christopher Raeburn.

‘The new generation is beginning to look at the fashion industry in a different way,’ de Castro continues. ‘They’re saying: “OK, how do I carve my own space here without compromising my design and creativity?”’

Originality is key in sustainable design, where – as opposed to conventional design where you start with an idea and then work out how to make it – materials come first.

But where the conventional designer might find that a cross to bear, the eco-designer regards it as a fundamental – and a pleasure. ‘If you work within limits, you exercise your creativity in a way that is profoundly rewarding and, in many cases, profoundly sustainable,’ says de Castro. Creative, rewarding, sustainable: the new generation of designers are lucky indeed.